joined after seeing this awesome site i'm moots with participate in these really cool weekly prompts. go check them out! muse ariadne is by xalli.
"living in california, it's hard not to be thinking about fire right now. think about a moment you've had with fire or explore how fire can be beautiful, dangerous, natural, harmonious, destructive, growth-inducing, tragic, etc"
It was after a long night out with people Raph had met online. Her heavy boots dragged across the floor as she entered her bedroom, trench coat barely clinging to her shoulders. She slumped onto the kitchen stool she'd claimed for her room, deliberately avoiding to look behind her, at her bed. The hallucinations had become routine - tonight, she was too tired to face them.
But a familiar outline sat in her peripheral vision.
"When the light leaves your eyes, where does it go?" she tested, her voice unwavering despite her dread.
"To the Asphodel meadows where the moon waits her turn." The response came, soft but cold.
"Sam," she turned slowly."How come you're here?"
He took a minute to answer. She noted the ridiculously oversized black sweater that swallowed his slender body - undoubtedly borrowed from Jacin - paired with gray sweatpants that didn't seem to be his either. Despite the unbearable cold in her room, his feet remained bare, and she faulted herself for not seeing his shoes while walking in, which would've saved her the fright.
"I figured I would remind you to take your medication." He extended his arm, a small box of pills dangling between two fingers, rattling the blister packs as he waved it in front of her eyes.
Raph frowned. "A text could've sufficed."
"Ah, you know I get bored."
She caught the box with one hand and reached for the dented water bottle she'd been carrying in her backpack since last week's movie outing with a few classmates. It was nearly full, as her mother's warnings about plastic containers echoed in her mind each time she considered drinking from it. As she swallowed the first pill, Sam's gaze settled on her neck like his eyes were feeling for a pulse.
They talked for a while, about friends, travels, college plans, as if nothing was strange about this visit. When Raph finally moved to take off her coat and kick off her boots, vertigo suddenly struck her. Her vision blurred as she looked toward the pill box, now empty, the foil seals of the pills scattered across her desk like dead flies. Slowly, she turned toward where Sam had been sitting, but the bed was empty, with no wrinkles in the covers as evidence that he'd been there at all.
"Why... why didn't you..." She lifted her hand to reach for her phone before her body collapsed onto the floor with a soft thud.
--
Light footsteps echoed through Raph's apartment. Jacin, her neighbour, had noticed the door was left ajar. A chilling feeling spread from his stomach, and as a man that always trusted his gut, he stepped inside to check on his best friend. It was dark, save for the bright white light coming from her bedroom at the end of the corridor.
She stood there, facing away from him, dressed as if she had just returned home. The air felt thin, freezing, and he could swear he could somehow smell his roommate's suffocating peppermint shampoo. He shook off that thought and stepped forward.
"Birdie?" he called out.
He watched, paralyzed, as she mechanically bent her right arm, index finger pointing toward the ceiling. A dirty black bandana was wrapped around her wrist. Before he could speak again, the click of a lighter cut through his thoughts, and rapidly, to his horror, her hand erupted into flames.
Every second stretched the distance between them. Raph remained motionless as the fire spread down her arm. When he finally lunged forward, seconds too late, he did not feel Raph against him.
Instead of colliding with her body, he found himself standing in her place, the flames now devouring him instead. His surroundings seemed to peel away like charred skin, and the room dissolved into an opalescent uniformity. He screamed something - he wasn't quite sure what - as a shadow stained the brightness before him, an ink-blot silhouette shaped like his roommate Sam. He could almost see facial features on the thing, as if his eyes were adjusting to the darkness, but they looked wrong, with eyes too dead and a mouth that bent downwards too much.
He could hear it like it was being carved into his brain:
"Don't interfere."
The command crashed through his body. He gritted his teeth, forcing his knees to lock, fighting to remain upright. When he finally collapsed and pressed his fists to the ground to push himself back up, the floor rippled beneath him. Iridescent earth swallowed his wrists.
Had he gone lucid in a nightmare? He found himself kneeling on a mound of rocks in the center of an endless field of lavender, his hands stuck in the stone.
"explore a mythological, religious, spiritual, etc figure in a piece of writing. write about their story, or their energy, or what they mean to you, or something else entirely!"
I think about Asherah a lot.
In the Old Testament, there was a law that forbade people from planting "asherim" near temples made to worship God. "Asherim" is plural - scholars speculate on whether these asherim were just trees or carved poles as well, but they were planted in honor of Asherah.
Asherah, consort of El, the Queen of Heaven. The Lion Lady. We planted groves in her name. Look! A forest of sacred trees, alive with whispered prayers and the scent of welcoming resin, branches reaching skyward like arms uplifted in praise. Each tree was a hymn under a cathedral of leaves.
But the asherim were cut down, turned to ash, and scattered in the winds of time. Her name became practically an annotation, a noun, with one foot in the margins.
If you stay still and wait, you can still hear her in the spaces between the noises that usually take over your day. In the rustle of leaves after a car passes or the hum of the earth after the metro rumbles past a waiting crowd. She is the mother who neither scolds nor demands, but simply exists, patient and ever-present, and waits for her children to return.
There is something breathtaking about her presence, even now. She's part of a balance we've all heard of - a divine feminine to counter the roaring, modern masculine. Asherah is not thunder and commandments, no, she is quiet growth and enduring strength. She's taken so much slander - yet she is the sacred tree that watches time pass, unhurried and wise, her branches offering shelter even to those who would seek to destroy her.
Her hands are calloused from tending roots through metal and concrete, but her eyes are soft, like the stars reflected on the summer waters by the coast of Sidon. She doesn’t ask to be worshipped. Her skin is covered with scars of asphalt, yet she remains humanity's nutrix.
I wonder what might have been if her groves had remained. Would humanity have learned something different about itself under her branches? If we could step back into her forests, I imagine the air would be thick with the scent of myrrh and sap. I think she would speak in parables, not to withhold, but because humanity has always gotten its best wisdoms through discovery, not dictation.
Asherah feels like a secret, and perhaps she always was. Like a riddle scribbled on a cardboard coffee cup by an anonymous hand for the right person to solve. There’s a bittersweet warmth to her story, like seeing a picture of a place you’ve never visited pop up on your feed in the middle of the night, but somehow still long to return to.
"write about someone you look up to or aspire to be like-- a role model of any kind. how do you relate to them? what about them resonates with you? is there anything you don't like about them? credit to tasmyn / ormulum for this suggestion"
"Enzo Mari was a universe." (Francesca Giacomelli / Disegno journal)
Enzo Mari was a designer, a critic, a provocateur. He didn’t see design as decoration but as a way to confront the world’s problems. Mari believed that good design shouldn’t just look nice or sell well; it should be useful, lasting, and honest. His work was about people and how they live. That belief—that design has a moral purpose—pulls me in, makes me want to do better, think harder, and not settle for mediocrity.
Take Autoprogettazione, his DIY furniture manual. It wasn’t just a set of design plans; it was a manifesto. He wanted people to connect with the act of making, to understand the materials, the joints, the weight of wood in their hands. He wasn’t selling products; he was teaching people how to make their own, rejecting the waste of mass production and the ever-hungry consumerism it feeds. That resonates with me because I’ve always felt uneasy with the wasteful culture we live in. Mari’s work feels like a challenge: a reminder that what we create should matter, not just now, for us, but for decades.
It’s not easy to sit with Mari’s ideas. He was uncompromising, sharp, always insanely creative. When I look at his book 25 Ways to Drive a Nail, I see how deeply he thought about even the most mundane tasks, elevating them into art, but also how exacting he was, leaving no room for shortcuts. In an interview, he said:
“Political activity consists of bringing others round to one’s own position. Isn’t that perhaps the shared goal of design?”
He was openly a communist, despite the backlash he could've faced for following such an ideology in Italy. He said:
“Would you like me to reveal a secret straightaway? I realize it’s a suicidal thing to say, but I’m going to do it anyway: I’m a communist.”
A bravery I hope to be able to emulate.
When I work, it can feel like Mari is staring over my shoulder, asking, "Why are you wasting time on this? Why isn’t it better?" even if the real Mari probably wouldn't have said that, haha. Mari’s work pushes me to try to make things that aren’t just convenient or trendy but that have meaning, that respect the user, the maker, and the world they exist in. Mari didn’t settle, and he wouldn’t want us to, either. That’s the part of him I aspire to most.
"come up with a title and write a piece around it!"
Paper coaster
Ran's bedroom was the coldest in the house, making it especially difficult to get out of bed. She reached behind her headboard to pull free her long, wavy hair - she had developed the habit of wedging her head between the wall and the headboard to sleep - and slowly made her way to the bathroom.
She wore a white shirt layered under a black dress. The thick denim of the garment at least kept her warm. Sliding on her woolen knee socks, she stepped into her cowboy boots and grabbed her axe.
Instead of heading to the kitchen, Ran descended to the basement, to her temple of thirty-three faces. She sat on a stone stool, and one of the grey masks mounted on the wall shifted outward. A body, attached to the anonymous face it bore, emerged sluggishly and wandered about before returning with a cup of hot chocolate. She smiled, eyes closed as she always did, and thanked it before taking a sip of the warm drink.
As she went to place her mug on the empty stool beside her, a pale hand slid a paper coaster under it. Her gaze flicked to the reddened knuckles, then to the scars and freckles of the intruder - the one she came to know as "the horrors."
Without a word, he picked up the axe she had left resting against the wall and walked away.
That was the last time she ever saw him.
"write a piece based off of a piece of art you've created-- photo, painting, collage, zine, song, etc!"
Death was colder than you expected. Of course, the lack of warmth was unsurprising, but the sharp fangs of the cold that permeated the office room floor were sinking so deep into your skin, it was difficult to believe that you were dying. No, you felt very much alive, almost too alive, like a sentient supernova casting her light on a forlorn planet. Your shadow, low on the ground, seemed to expand.
Although you were just a head now, technically, you felt like the entire room was part of your body. That's right, Belphie's axe had separated you from that old thing, this despicable body that's caused you so much trouble over the years. It was still slumped over the anvil that you had rested your head on before it rolled off and bounced around the office.
You could hear her walk, every step not only echoed, but rippled through your skull. You could almost see the sound waves in your blood that was annoyingly sticking to your cheek.
It scared you, that there was no going back from this. You were dying, for real this time. No miracle could get you reconnected to your body. Belphie had beheaded you. Beheaded. Ah...
You considered sleeping it off. Yeah, maybe if you closed your eyes and went to sleep, it would all be okay.
You felt your heart in your throat beat faster the more you thought about the fact that you were beheaded and bleeding out. How was that possible? You felt like you were going to throw up, despite your lack of a stomach.
TV static coursed through your brain. Soon, it spread to your vision, black popcorn turning the office into a tunnel. You were being sucked into an invisible void - soon, it was all you could see.
But suddenly, like a desperate prayer, everything turned white. You could see far into the distance a shadow of a man raising a hand. He sharply lowered it, and blinding pain coursed through what felt like your entire body. Blinding, hot, white pain.
You were being ripped apart. Your soul - was this hell? - was being split in half.
Just before it happened, you understood everything. A split second turned into lifetimes. You saw it all. And then, you weren't there anymore.
"i strongly believe that we're little mosaics of our ancestors, all the people we've known, & a sort of 'us' essence. explore something you've learned or something that matters to you that came from somewhere outside of you"
If we are living, breathing mosaics, a quilt sewn from the fabric of our ancestors, the voices of those we’ve loved, and a distinct thread that is uniquely us, then somewhere between the threads, I’ve come to feel the presence of Hanuman, the Hindu god known for his boundless devotion, strength, and humility.
I didn't know much about Hanuman outside of his attributes until two friends of mine, a couple, told me about him. He is a god of unwavering service, of bending his strength to the will of the divine, and of channeling his might to lift burdens that are not his own.
Pondering this and the idea of gods being present in everyday life, I began to look for Hanuman. My grandmother’s hands, worn from years of caring for her family - hands that carried the weight of our small universe. My classmates back in school, the few who took notes for everyone else to copy. My parents, who provided for my sister and I selflessly, despite our fights. My lover, who sticks by me even at my worst, even at his worst. The priest who leaves it all behind to become a public servant as much as a servant of the most high. The firefighters who died in my hometown in an attempt to save everyone.
Stitched into my soul was a bright orange thread that wasn't mine at all.
"look around your room, or any space that you love & call home, and write about some aspect of it"
"I suppose that'll do."
Her mother had just left for Beirut. Neuma scanned her new room with a critical look, as if she were logging the HEX color code of every piece of furniture: white wallpaper tethering on blue, a brown desk that shone orange but looked red near the wall... A great window spanned the entire width of her room, offering little privacy save for the thick grey curtains drawn over the dusty glass that framed a direct view of her neighbors.
The air smelled faintly of cedar from an "acqua profumata" her mom had bought her. She sighed and let her gaze wander back to the desk. The light spilling in from the edges of the curtain gave the varnished wood a peculiar glow, shifting in color depending on where she stood. It reminded her of the way her mother’s nail polish looked different in the warm lights of their old living room in Beirut compared to the sharp fluorescence of the airport.
Neuma took a sip of tap water, slipping between the heavy curtains and the window, her fingers grazing the cool glass. The quiet inside her new room was different from the quiet she remembered in Beirut. There, silence was a fragile thing, always at risk of breaking from a sudden horn blaring or a television spilling news no-one wanted to hear. Here, it was dense, as if the room itself was holding its breath, waiting for her to say something. She shifted away from the window, letting the curtains fall into place, muffling the sound of a dog that had suddenly barked - there were so many dogs in this city, Neuma hadn't seen a single cat yet. A cheerful voice called out, followed by laughter. She tried to imagine herself joining in, becoming part of the neighborhood instead of a stranger peeking in through its cracks. But she knew better than to try to belong anywhere: she never settled long enough to do so.
For now, this room would have to do. The curtains, the desk, the dusty window: they were all hers, at least for a while. As the sun dipped lower in the sky, scattering cool beige rays into the room, she made a promise to herself: this time, she would unpack her suitcase.
"write about insides. this prompt mainly has bones/skeletons, muscles, flesh, structures in mind, but as always, take it where you please"
"Despite it all, there are still people who are willing to love me."
Standing before her was a corroded office door. She brushed the rusty spherical handle with her fingertips. Shivers ran up her spine as flashbacks that weren't hers shot from her wrist to the back of her head - images of pain and despair beyond what anyone should experience. She knew she had to step in. It was the only way.
Bitter saliva pooled in the back of her throat as she slowly opened the door. The room was cold, but she could feel warmth radiating from somewhere in the darkness—it felt like sunrays hitting her cheek, yet her surroundings were pitch black.
She took a few steps in, following the warmth, before scurrying back.
"...Mars?"
In front of her, on the wall, she could see a silhouette. It didn't look human, and she thought she could see something glisten in the mass of darkness before her. But she could sense it — that warmth...
As if waiting for her to speak, the room suddenly lit up, buzzing off-white LED tubes above her head bathing the room in a sickly hue.
Her eyes widened as she beheld the grotesque mass adhered to the wall. Stretch across the concrete and peeling yellowing paint was a tangled amalgamation of muscle and bone and scarlet flesh, a horrifying sculpture of anatomy twisted beyond recognition. Sinews of muscle fibers stretched alongside anchoring chunks of burgundy tissue that seemed to pulsate - was it alive? Exposed ribs arched outward like the skeletal frame of a monstrous cathedral, each bone interlaced with strands of raw, quivering muscle.
Veins coursed over the surface, engorged with dark, sluggish blood that gave the entire mass... oh God, it gave it rhythm. A twisted dance to a melody she almost couldn't hear, yet it was there, the squelching and a soft wail, so soft... here and there, patches of pale skin clung desperately to the underlying flesh, torn and frayed at the edges like tattered cloth, and if her gaze lingered too long she could see peach fuzz and freckles. And oh Lord, jutting out off-center was what remained of a skull, one eye socket empty while the other housed an orb that swiveled erratically, its gaze landing on her with unsettling intent.
This warmth...
"Mars?" she whispered again so low she wasn't sure she had spoken at all.
In response, the single eye lowered its gaze slowly. A fissure opened below it, revealing more layers of flesh, more layers of muscle, until she could see it, right there, unmistakably... a beating heart. Tendrils of flesh began to protrude from the sides, reaching out towards her like the bulging little arms of a newborn baby seeking an embrace.
Despite the revulsion twisting in her stomach, she took a hesitant step forward. The mass quivered, and a louder wail emanated from deep within it.
Compelled by an inexplicable force, she reached out her hand. The moment she touched the slick surface of the flesh, a surge of emotions flooded her mind: anguish, longing, love, terrible terrible loneliness. The eye went slack, and the tendrils wrapped gently around her wrist, not to restrain, but to connect.
And she understood.
"retell a story/moment/memory from your own life in a way you don't usually look at it"
You are sixteen. The wind is easing outside. Alone in your room, your mind is whirling. You're on the phone with your then sweetheart. Your hands are stinging. He begs you to set down the blade. In your grip are two bars of soap shaped neatly into roses. White shavings cover the floor. The cuts in your skin are bleeding onto the blooms, burning, a reminder that you're alive. You don't recall how you got here. Why you started whittling. You think you were afeared of something. You think you weren’t feeling real again, and you reached for craft to ground you. You feel ill. He’s acting as though you had hurt yourself, but you didn’t, not this time. You dodged what could’ve been a misfall in red. Your fingers sting. There’s soap everywhere. You feel like a hound that gnawed through paperwork. And yet, this was a win. A small win against a very real fiend. You watch your blood branch out into one of the soap bars, blood that came from drive, not from despair. Despite blacking out, you fought a fiend much bigger than you, a fiend that thirsts for your blood always.
"tell a story you want to tell to future generations to come-- whether through a poem, a short story, an essay, a myth-like retelling, or something else"
Let me tell you a story older than your home, older than the streets that carry you and have carried your ancestors. It's about a land in love with the sea, a sapling of a cedar between giants: Lebanon.
In the days when gods still murmured wisdoms and terribly reckless ideas to mortals, there lived the Canaanites, a people often scorned, called dogs in the old tales, accused of defiling humanity itself through their worship. Yet they endured, these resilient souls, their chests the hearth of a flickering flame of hope, whilst they lay the stones upon which others would tread. Yes, they built temples, temples of letters and stone:
They became the Phoenicians, merchants who danced with the waves, birthing Carthage and gifting the world its first alphabet! The very script of scripts upon which all stories are spun in our age!
But destiny loves to laugh... her scarlet lips curl with mirth and we all pay the toll. Lebanon found itself facing the lion of Persia, the wolf of the Ottoman Empire... not by choice, no, moreso like a raindrop faces the ground. We were doomed to meet, mightiest of enemies. This petrichor reeked of divine wrath. Had we offended God?
To survive amongst predators, the old dogs of Canaan donned the guise of hyenas. At last! We fit in with the eagle of Germany, the rooster of France, the lion of Britain, empires whose shadows stretched so far, they were capable of claiming the sun never set on them. The Republic of Lebanon! A blue passport!
Years flowed along the Leontes, and our growing cedar found itself entangled in brambles of its own making, branches clashing with branches. Brother against brother who seemingly forgot that they all drew life from the same roots. You fools! You share the same blood, the same ancestral mother. How could you? Astarte weeps and her eyes look up at the heavens where she once resided. Why have we been forsaken?
And one day, a sickness crept through its veins, this suffering cedar, its xylem flushed like cinnabar - hunger gnawed at its bark, and the winds carried whispers of vultures circling above, beaks gleaming with anticipation. A cancerous vascular cambium, an infestation of despair. So many fled.
Covert warfare, deceit... but the cedar did not bow. Its precious bark will always hurt your maws, o termites, no matter how hard you try to dig! Begone, pests! It will not surrender to the serpent's burning venom or be felled by the axes of loggers hungry for profit. No! Its roots are older than you, o conniving snakes, older than the first of your flock, o vultures!
This is the tale I leave you with tonight, children of my children: a primordial story of endurance and hope. Remember the cedar of Lebanon, strong against all storms, which refuses to bend, never to break. For if we press our ears to its trunk, we find the echoes of our own bravery, one last secret from the old gods that even in the fiercest of winds, we can prevail.
"we do a lot of writing in this club-- this week, i'd like us all to take some time to revise something. explore something you've written for an earlier prompt and play around with it. this doesn't have to be with the intention of making it 'better'. make it new; make it different; make it truer to yourself. have fun with it"
"Memory"
I can't remember how old I was - I must've been sixteen, maybe seventeen. I had been dealing with this demon since the age of twelve or thirteen: a demon that wails to feel alive, that begs for pain in order to confirm that it has indeed been made flesh, like it couldn't believe it, like it was such an awesome feat, like... like it had been waiting for years for- for a body, for blood to call its own.
I barely had any scars at the time - I'd get myself into situations that would cause injury on purpose. I'd wade through thorny bushes in the forest, I'd dig through rocky sands and feel the salty sting of the sea on my skin. A good friend of mine had shown me out of the blue how she gives herself bruises and asked me to mimic her as she slammed her wrist against the edge of our shared desk in class... naively, I obliged, and she laughed and murmured "you're crazy." I didn't understand what I was doing, in the moment. I don't recall feeling much pain either, to me this was just like painting blue spots on my skin. When the ice cube challege came out, the one where you fill your hand with salt and hold an ice cube for as long as possible... I held on until the thing melted in my hand. It burned, but I wanted it to burn more. I didn't know why, at the time.
I don't recall what tipped me over the edge of causing pain to myself in more obvious ways. It did feel like possession. I don't recall how my boyfriend at the time found out that I used to do it and that it was possible that I still was. But I recall one night, in my room, at home alone (I think), I was entirely consumed by the thought of carving streaks on my skin. Except it didn't happen, and when I "came to", I had used a throwing knife to carve two white Dove soap bars into roses. I shakily texted my boyfriend and he begged me to let go of everything and clean up. I didn't understand why he was so upset. To me, this was a win - I didn't hurt myself! Yes, making art out of soap with zero recollection of doing so was terrifying, hence why I went to him, but in that moment, I felt like a dog caught by its owner after tearing through the couch.
I don't recall what I did afterwards - that knife remained covered with bits of soap for a while. I don't know where the roses went - I know you could see droplets of blood branch out into their petals because I wasn't too careful while carving. But that wasn't on purpose... I hope, or else this wasn't a win at all.
"write about the sky— any aspect of it. color, feeling, temperature, shape (?), etc. write about a sky that inspires you or that exhausts you, or anything else you’d like"
Around five to ten years ago, Raph wrote about the sky to explain DPDR to Iris.
It went something like this :
"You walk down the street, pen in hair, phone in hand. You look up at the sky and all of a sudden, it's like it's swallowing you whole, and your eyes are dissolving in the big blue, and your eyes make one with the clouds. I wonder how scared I was the first time it happened."
But then, the rest of the text was deleted. I only managed to retrieve a few words: you look at the fresh scribbles on the back of your hand - clock ticking - check the time - floating but (?) heavy - heart - chest - you squint but someone forces you to open your eyes before the dark takes a hold of your soul - it only took five seconds - end of the road - leads the conversation.
For you, Raph, I've attempted to complete your work.
There's no fright like the one that stabs like a lost lover's touch. You know the one - you'll look at something so beautiful, so horrifying, and it'll carress the nape of your neck with its fingertips. Your eyes will turn wide - écarquiller, English simply cannot convey it like the French. "Il s’excusa gracieusement de quitter le salon et sortit ayant envie de dormir autant que de s’aller noyer : le démon de la curiosité lui écarquillait les yeux, et de sa main délicate ôtait le coton que le Chevalier avait dans les oreilles."
The sky. This beautiful angel of ours. Ours ! His gorgeous face, ever-changing. We've got Ouranos looking down at us and yet - and yet we never deign to look back and say hello. You're all so entranced with the moon and stars and clouds and -
It's too wide of a sky. Too wide. It curves at the edges and yet remains infinite. If I stare for too long, I'll fall in. Were the ancients not scared of the sky falling unto them? I suppose I've got it backwards, but for good reason ! Am I not the one suspended by the feet?
When it rains, you thank the clouds, not the sky. How come?
I wish I had wings so I could fly high enough to pass the blue between my fingers. Sky, let down your fragrant locks ! They make my nose red and my lungs burn, but sitting in your shade is more refreshing than smoking peppermint.
Sky, I'll stand in an open field and stare at you if I ever want to scare myself into enjoying life to the fullest. What a grim reminder of my size that you are ! Come down here and get on my level, you arrogant blue devil !
You're ours - you belong to humanity. It is done ! We'll scar you like we did the Earth, black bands of asphalt, hideous cuts across her gentle skin. It'll happen to you, too ! Have you not felt the poke of skyscrapers ? The punch of a rocket ? Admit it !
Out of all robes, you chose the one with the rarest colour on Earth. That couldn't have been a coincidence. Blue ! Animals have evolved to split light to achieve your colour ! Vibrant, vibrant blue !
Delicious orange, charming pink, comforting black, you can do it all, angel ! I hope to adorn my lover with all of your colours.
Keep protecting us from the great beyond, angel of mankind. I love you more than I fear you.
"reflect on and write about a moment that was monumental for someone else and how it affected you. maybe make some comparisons between your experiences, or mesh them."
My mother was sent to Europe when she was 17.
She got stuck with an abusive uncle, who'd parade her youth in exchange for conversation. Men's clubs. She'd sit like a doll. No touching.
Eventually, she found a roommate, and thus she was free. Her parents asked her to come back for the holidays.
At the airport, she found thousands of euros in a suitcase. My mom does what is right, always. She told him.
He kept the money for himself.
My mother didn't want to return to Lebanon, but she couldn't say no to her parents. She was the eldest, she was never taught how to say no.
Her parents took her passport.
Two years of college in France went down the drain: these wouldn't be recognised as valid in Lebanon.
She started all over again.
Her entire plight in France was for nothing. That money he took from her would've saved her - she could've stayed in France forever.
That bastard's in New York now. He has a YouTube channel. The wicked really does die last.
I think that when she was pregnant, her younger self was with me in the womb. I could hear it say:
"It's not fair! It's not fair! It's not fair!"
I've been handicapped by this sense that things need to be fair at all times. Injustices done to loved ones send me reeling. I can't enjoy any media without checking that the underdog wins, that misunderstandings get resolved.
My mother's time in France and its untimely end were so monumental, they were encoded in my DNA.
In another world, my mother would've stayed in France. In another world, we could've been classmates.
I'll save for a trip to New York.
"write about something monstrous. what does it mean for something to be a monster? is it a judgment of character, something inherited at birth/creation, or something else?"
Before anything else, a monster is a warning.
Propped up in front of a crowd, the townspeaker will hold your portrait high and declare "Behold! This is the enemy!"
You will be hunted down: after all, you are a beacon of all that is wrong, a reminder that this world is a fallen one.
Your killers will say that we all have the potential for evil, and your head is needed on a mantle to keep their flock in check.
In your TV shows, the good guys will point at the bad guys screaming, "You monster!" The bad guys will rarely protest. They deserve it.
On the news, they'll call the enemy monsters too. There are no monsters on their side, though, never. I think they deserve it, too.
Sitting in church, you'll look at the golden monstrance. A monstrance, before anything else, is proof.
A monstrance is proof that the church is true. That the sermon is good. That God is great.
To you, a monstrance is a warning. Wasn't Jesus killed for going against his people? For claiming to be something greater?
To your young impressionable brain, a monstrance is a warning that your body will be eaten by your peers for millennia if you do what's right:
That they'll kill you, then in their grief, they'll rip you apart and consume you.
They'll write hymns about you! The same voices that condemned you will sing your odyssey.
Your butchers will bathe in your blood for good luck before their wedding.
Your bully will wear your hair in a locket for safe travels.
Your rapist will sing to people about how bittersweet your encounter was. A tale where he fell for the monster, but he forgave it.
He has a picture of you in his wallet that he looks at longingly. You were an experience. You monster.
There is nothing you can do about it. You are a child sitting in church.
"think & write about a space you've never inhabited-- something you've watched from afarr (in awe, fear, envy, etc), but never engaged in"
There is an appartment building in Milan with benches and a garden.
College students live there. Laundry machines rumble through the night, and in the morning, they hang out by the fountain, journals in hand.
They have words and coffee for breakfast. They show off their outfits, this new ring he thrifted, this scarf she made out of curtains.
Someone mentions crypto, someone else talks about a zine they're working on. Someone waves their ADHD medicine in the air - finally diagnosed! I'm so happy for you.
They go to class, then some stay out, the quieter ones come back. They read a book under a tree. They make coffee. They pawn off a cigarette from another student, half asleep on the bench.
She discusses her struggles with her identity, he nods thoughtfully with his experience with finding purpose. After their talk, they don't have to say goodbye: they live on the same floor. They'll talk in a couple of hours.
I'm not there. I'm on the other side of town - but we all go to the same college.
We talk about our plans. I say I'm building my own PC. They say they're impressed.
I'll try to walk with them as far as I can before going home. I'll watch as they turn to dots.
I don't think it's loneliness. I used to romanticise Kowloon a lot: a yearning for being part of something greater, of exchanging ideas and building a better community for the future. Of group projects... of a village. Of knowing my neighbours.
I'd like to be friends with my neighbours.
"find a news article, new or old, and write something based on it"
To find a news article to write about, when living in a warzone, is a little funny. I can see the news articles write themselves by looking outside my window. A rocket hit as I was typing! But I'm tired of the war. So I will speak of somethinh else:
Buried beneath a mountain of rubble, they counted the days by the breeze of their breath against the slippery walls. Eighteen days. Eighteen days of soppy lungs, aching bones, and the whispers of rain just beyond the stalagtites. Eighteen days where the darkness had become a companion, the rising water a suffocating friend.
Heavy rain had flooded Tham Luang Nang Non, leaving all twelve of them and their coach trapped. But they clung to life. They'd ration their breaths if they had to. Even in the belly of death, they refused to let go.
When the world finally found them, it found them strong. None of them faltered. They would all see the light of day again.
Someone had died trying to swim towards them days prior. But they wouldn't know it yet. A year later, the cave would claim another victim from injuries contracted during their rescue mission. But they all made it out.
In 2023, years later, their team captain took his own life.
But in the cave, life triumphed. They defeated death. They defeated darkness. The hope of twelve boys and a monk made coach was stronger than the monsoon season of Thailand.
I think about this case often. That they had to be rendered unconscious to be extracted from the cave. It reminds me of my own fears of anesthesia, of being put under before surgery only to never wake up. But they all woke up! They took the plunge to take a dive without knowing if they'd emerge on the other side. Twelve boys!
In Summer's streaks of green, a duck flails erratically:
A snake coils itself around it. It melts over its victim's feathers, it soaks it in the cruelest of storms.
A cat dries on the sidewalk, void of life, under the fires of Summer's laughter.